Vanity and narcissism – the compulsive need to be admired and praised – undermine one’s courage, for one then fights on someone else’s conviction rather than one’s own.
Neither Kierkegaard nor Nietzsche had the slightest interest in starting a movement – or a new system, a thought which would indeed have offended them. Both proclaimed, in Nietzsche’s phrase, Follow not me, but you!
Evil, in this system of ethics, is that which tears apart, shuts out the other person, raises barriers, sets people against each other.
I learned that healing and cure are active processes in which I myself needed to participate.
The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have.
Humans have a habit of running faster when they have lost their way.
One of the few blessings of living in an age of anxiety is that we are forced to become aware of ourselves.
Purpose in the human being is a much more complex phenomenon than what used to be called will power.
Many people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone, and so they don’t find themselves at all.
Anxiety is an even better teacher than reality, for one can temporarily evade reality by avoiding the distasteful situation; but anxiety is a source of education always present because one carries it within.
People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day to day.
What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?
It requires greater courage to preserve inner freedom, to move on in one’s inward journey into new realms, than to stand defiantly for outer freedom. It is often easier to play the martyr, as it is to be rash in battle.
Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.
Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity as a being of worth and dignity.
The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.
Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one’s death.
A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
It is interesting to note how many of the great scientific discoveries begin as myths.
One central need in life is to fulfill its own potential.